Deborah
Yates said her son Gregory Colella and six of his schoolmates from
Rachel Carson Middle School "were all very, very excited to be
recognized" at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth’s
2009 Grand Ceremony on Sunday, June 7.

"And we got a free lunch," said eighth-grader Lauren Huang.

Because
it was the center’s 30th anniversary, cupcakes with little anniversary
flags were also served, said Gregory, a seventh-grader.

In
order to be honored at the ceremony at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, the junior high-school students had to achieve high scores
on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or American College Test (ACT),
which are normally taken by college-bound high-school students.

In
any given season, only one or two schools have something like seven
students among the fewer than 500 hundred children from across the
country who were honored at the Grand Ceremony, said Center for
Talented Youth spokesman Matt Bowden, noting that these were often
magnate schools. He said Center for Talented Youth founder, the late
Julian Stanley, once estimated that the odds of a middle-school student
scoring high enough to be honored in the Grand Ceremony were about 1 in
10,000.

Bowden said more than 30 Rachel Carson students had
qualified for the statewide ceremony that took place the day before.
"Rachel Carson’s numbers are really outstanding by any standard," he
said.

In order to be tested by the center, students have to
score in the 95th percentile of their state’s standardized test. This
year, the center tested 63,000 students.

THE RACHEL CARSON
students took the tests in January at area high schools alongside high
school students, but Gregory said the environment did not intimidate
him. "I knew a few people there," Gregory said, noting that three other
seventh-graders were in his test-taking group.

To make the cut
for the national ceremony as an eighth-grader, Lauren had to score at
least a 750 out of a possible 800 on either the math or critical
reading section of the SATs. As it turned out, she ranked second in the
state for both sections, as well as for her combined score. "I didn’t
expect it," she said of her score.

Students take all three parts of the tests, but Johns Hopkins doesn’t consider the writing sections.

"Overall, she’s very good," said Helen Chen, Lauren’s mother.

Lauren is also known as the winner of the school’s spelling bee, and she placed third in the county spelling bee.

Seventh-graders
had to score at least a 700 on one section of the SATs or a 28 out of
36 in the math section of the ACTs or a 31 in the reading section.

Seventh-grader
Sreenath Are scored a perfect 800 on the math SATs, giving him the
highest math ranking in the state and putting him at the top in the
country. He was awarded a $1,000 scholarship toward one of the Center
for Talented Youth’s summer programs.

Bowden said the center
offered more than 130 courses in a wide variety of locations, as well
as online programs. The summer courses include anything from robotics
to studying whales in estuary systems to a cryptography class in which
students work with National Security Agency employees to learn to crack
codes, Bowden said. Not only are the courses academically advanced,
they are also accelerated, he said. "These students are covering a
year’s worth of curriculum in three weeks."

All students recognized in the Grand Ceremony are eligible for the classes.

Sreenath said he had not yet decided which course to take but was leaning toward the subjects of math and logic.

"We
are thrilled about his achievement," said his mother, Lakshmi. "He
doesn’t seem to work very hard all of the time, but he achieves
results."

Rohan Banerjee, also in seventh grade, was also
awarded a $1,000 scholarship and said he planned to put it toward a
three-week residential math and logic course at Johns Hopkins. His
scores on the SATs ranked him first in the state for his combined score
and second for critical reading.

HIS MOTHER, Ratna, said her son had worked hard and deserved the honor, "but we’re just thrilled."

Gregory
took the ACTs and scored highest on the reading section, but he said he
would take a math and logic-oriented course if he could fit it in
between vacations.

"I wouldn’t say I was shocked, but I was pleasantly surprised," his mother said of his score.

Tony
Xiao said he was not inclined to take a class over the summer. "Summer
is to stay home, sleep late and play basketball," he said," although he
conceded that he might cave to parental pressure and take a course. If
so, he said, "I would probably take some kind of writing course because
on the essay I got like a six, which is really, really crappy."

Two
Rachel Carson students who had been at the Grand Ceremony but could not
meet up with the others on Saturday afternoon were Phillip Yu and
Ashley Xue.

"At least for me, as a mother, I’d like to thank
Rachel Carson for encouraging them and having them take the test and
helping smart kids like these flourish," Yates said. "I think it’s a
great school for that."

Photo
by Mike DiCicco Five
of the seven Rachel Carson students recently honored at this year’s
national Grand Ceremony for the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth
pose with some of their mothers. From left are Deborah Yates; Gregory
Colella; Ratna and Rohan Banerjee; Lakshmi and Sreenath Are; Loren
Huang; Helen Chen and Tony Xiao. Not pictured are Rachel Carson
students Ashley Xue and Philip Yu.